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ADDRESS 


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TO THE 


NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION, 


TO EE HELD AT 


St. Louis, Mo., June 27, 1876 


Philadelphia, Pa., June 20 tk, 1876. 

To the President and Members of the National Democratic Convention 

assembled at St. Louis , June 21th , 1876. 

Gentlemen :—In reading the call for your Convention, “ The Na¬ 
tional Woman Suffrage Association” were gratified to find that your 
invitation was not limited to voters, hut cordially extended to all citizens 
of the United States. 

We accordingly send delegates from our Association, asking for them 
a voice in your proceedings, and also a plank in your platform, declaring 
the political rights of women. 

Women are the only class of citizens still wholly unrepresented in 
the Government, and yet we possess every qualification requisite for 
voters in the several States. Women possess property and education; 
we take out naturalization papers and passports ; we pre-empt lands, 
pay taxes, and suffer for our own violation of the laws. We are neither 
idiots, lunatics, nor criminals; and, according to your State Constitu¬ 
tions, lack but one qualification for voters; namely, sex; which is an 
insurmountable qualification, and therefore equivalent to a bill of 

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attainder against one-half the people; a power no State nor Congress 
can legally exercise; being forbidden in Article 1, Section 9 and 10 of 
the Constitution. 

Our rulers may have the right to regulate the suffrage, but they can¬ 
not abolish it altogether for any class of citizens, as has been done, in 
the case of the women of this Republic, without a direct violation of 
the fundamental law of the land. 

As you hold the Constitution of the Fathers to be a sacred legacy to 
us and our children forever, we ask you to so interpret that Magna 
Charta of human rights as to secure justice and equality to all United 
States citizens, irrespective of sex. 

We desire to call your attention to the violation of the essential prin¬ 
ciple of self-government in the disfranchisement of the women of the 
several States, and we appeal to you, not only because as a minority 
you are in a position to consider principles, but because you were the 
party first to extend suffrage, by removing the property qualification 
from all white men, and thus making the political status of the richest 
and poorest citizen the same. That act of justice to the laboring masses 
.insured your power, with but few interruptions, until the war. 

When the District of Columbia Suffrage Bill was under discussion in 
1866, it was a Democratic Senator, Mr. Cowan, of Pennsylvania, who 
proposed*an amendment to strike out the word “ male,” and thus extend 
the right of suffrage to the women, as well as the black men of the 
District. That amendment gave us a splendid discussion on woman 
suffrage, that lasted three days in the Senate of the United States. 

It was a Democratic Legislature that secured the right of suffrage to 

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the women of Wyoming, and we now ask you, in National Convention, 
to pledge the Democratic Party to extend this act of justice to the 
women throughout the nation, and thus call to your side a new political 
force that will restore and perpetuate your power for years to come. 

The Republican Party gave us a plank in their platform in 1872, 
pledging themselves to a u respectful consideration” of our demands. 
But by their constitutional interpretations, legislative enactments, and 
judicial decisions, so far from redeeming their pledge, they have buried 
our petitions and appeals under laws in direct opposition to their high’ 
sounding promises and professions. 

And now, in 1876, they give us another plank in their platform, 
approving “ the substantial advance made towards the establishment of 


equal rights for women cunningly reminding us that the privileges 
and immunities we now enjoy are all due to Republican legislation ; 
although under a Republican dynasty, inspectors of elections have 
been arrested and imprisoned for taking the votes of women; temper¬ 
ance women arrested and imprisoned for praying in the streets ; houses, 
lands, bonds, and stock of women seized and sold for their refusal to 
pay unjust taxation ; and more than all, we have this singular spectacle : 
a Republican woman, who had spoken for the Republican party 
throughout the last Presidential Campaign, arrested by a Republican 
officer for voting the Republican ticket; denied the right of trial by 

jury, by a Republican judge; convicted, and sentenced to a fine of one 

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hundred dollars and costs of prosecution; and all this for asserting at 
the polls the most sacred of all the rights of American citizenship, the 
right of suffrage, specifically secured by recent Republican amendments 
to the Federal Constitution. 

Again; the Supreme Court of the United States, by its recent deci¬ 
sion in the Minor vs. Happersatt case, has stultified its own inter¬ 
pretation of constitutional law. 

A negro, by virtue of his United States citizenship, is declared, 
under recent amendments, a voter in every State in the Union ; but 
when a woman, by virtue of her United States citizenship, applies to 
the Supreme Court of the United States for protection in the exercise 
of this same right, she is remanded to the State, by the unanimous deci¬ 
sion of the nine judges on the bench, that “ the Constitution of the 
United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon any one/’ 

All concessions of privileges, or redress of grievances, are mockery 
for any class that has no voice in the laws and lawmakers; hence we 
demand the ballot, that sceptre of power, in our own hands, as the only 
sure protection for our rights of person and property under all condi¬ 
tions. If the few' may grant or withhold rights at their pleasure, the 
many cannot be said to enjoy the blessings of self-government. Jeffer¬ 
son said, “ the God w r ho gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time; 
the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.” 

While the first and highest motive we w r ould urge on you is the re¬ 
cognition, in all your action, of the great principles of justice and 
equality that underlie our form of Government, it is not unwmrthy to 
remind you that the party that takes this onward step will reap its just 
reward. 


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Had you heeded our appeals made to you at Tammany Hall, New 
York, in 1868, and again in Baltimore, in 1872, your party might now 
have been in power, as you would have had, what neither party can 
boast to-day, a live issue, on which to rouse the enthusiasm of the 
people. 

Reform is the watchword of the hour; but how can we hope- for 
honor and honesty in either party in minor matters, so long as both 
consent to rob one-half the people—their 'own mothers, sisters, wives, 
and daughters—of their most sacred rights. 

As a party you defended the right of self-government in Louisiana 
ably and eloquently during the last session in Congress. Are the 
rights of women in all the Southern States, whose slaves are now their 
rulers, less sacred than those .of the men of Louisiana? “ The whole 
art of Government,” says Jefferson, ^consists in being honest.” 

It needs but little observation to see that the tide of progress, in all 
countries, is setting towards the emancipation and enfranchisement of 
women ; and this step in civilization is to be taken in our day and 
generation. 

Whether the Democratic party will take the initiative in this reform, 
and reap the glory of crowning fifteen million women with the rights of 
American citizenship, and thereby vindicate our theory of self-govern¬ 
ment, is the momentous question we ask you to decide in this eventful 
hour, as we round out the first century of our national life. 

Pres., ELIZABETH CADY STANTON. 

Ch. Ex. Com., MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE, 

Cor. Sec , SUSAN B. ANTHONY. 

Centennial Head-quarters, 1431 Chestnut Street, 1 
Philadelphia, Pa. / 

-- - — ■ » — - 

PLANK FOR THE DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM. 

Whereas, The Democratic party was the first to abolish the property 
qualification, and extend the right of suffrage to all white men in some 
of the older States ; 

And whereas, it was a Democratic Legisature that extended the 
right of suffrage to the women of Wyoming; 

Therefore Resolved, That we pledge ourselves to secure the right of 
suffrage to the women of the United States on equal terms with men. 


LB JL ’05 









L'BRARY 0 F CONGRESS 



